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Chapter 9

CdS-Based Semiconductor Photocatalysts for Hydrogen Production from Water Splitting under Solar Light Sheng Huang, Yu Lin, Jian-Hua Yang, and Ying Yu* College of Physical Science and Technology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China *E-mail: [email protected]. Fax: 86-27-67861185.

Energy crisis around the world pushes people to take advantage of renewable energy. As one kind of photosynthesis, H2 evolution from water splitting through solar light attracts a lot of interest. Herein, this article will introduce recently published CdS-based semiconductors for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution from water splitting under solar light. The activity and stability of different CdS-based photocatalysts including CdS with different nanostructures, CdS composites with other semiconductor, polymer or high surface area materials will be described and compared. The function of deposited cocatalysts and sacrificial reagents will be also introduced for the improvement of activity and stability for CdS. The prospective trend in this research area will be proposed as well. Summarily, by means of the nanostructure change and hybridization modification, the activity of CdS for hydrogen production and the corresponding quantum efficiency can be enhanced intensely and the stability can be improved as well. We hope the review will inspire people new good ideas and thus facilitate CdS-based photocatalysts moving forward to practical application in future.

© 2013 American Chemical Society In Nanotechnology for Sustainable Energy; Hu, Y., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013.

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1. Introduction Conventional fossil fuel as non-renewable energy can not meet the growing energy demand of human beings. What’s worse, environmental contamination is unavoidable for the use of non-renewable fossil fuel. The two challenges, energy crises and environment problem, have seriously restricted the development of our society. As a new renewable energy, hydrogen with high fuel value is abundant, environmentally friendly and has been used in fuel cell. Conventional methods for hydrogen production from water gas, cracking petroleum gas, water electrolysis etc. are not only high-energy consumed but also have troubles in environment and renewable aspects, which conventional fossil fuel is facing now. Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen under the irradiation of solar light with the presence of photocatalysts can address the issues which the conventional methods for hydrogen production result in. Therefore, hydrogen may be the most promising substitute for traditional energy sources. Since the discovery of photoelectrochemical water splitting into H2 and O2 over TiO2 electrode (1), many efforts have been taken to improve the activity of hydrogen evolution and quantum efficiency (QE) of semiconductor photocatalyst. The main mechanism for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution is as follows. Firstly, semiconductor photocatalyst is irradiated by solar light and absorbs photon with energy equal to or higher than that of band gap for the semiconductor. Then, photogenerated electron−hole pairs are produced. Photogenerated hole is oxidative while photogenerated electron is reductive. Secondly, the energy band level should be at appropriate position. The top of valence band should be lower (or more positive) than the oxidation potential of O2/H2O (1.23 V vs normal hydrogen electrode (NHE)) (2), together with the bottom of conduction band to be higher (or more negative) than reduction potential of H+/H2 (0 V) (2). The related scheme is illustrated in Figure 1. Besides the two main reasons of photon absorption and the suitable position of energy band edge for a semiconductor, there are some other factors which will affect photocatalytic activity, such as the recombination possibility of photogenerated holes and electrons and the migration rate of photogenerated holes and electrons to the surface. In photocatalytic hydrogen evolution system, although equipment, photocatalyst mass, light source etc are different, we can compare hydrogen evolution efficiency by H2 evolution rate (µmol h-1g-1) and QE. The QE is calculated based on the following equation (3).

At present, the synthesis of narrow band gap semiconductor that can absorb visible light is the main trend for hydrogen production since about 43% of solar energy lies in visible light region, which is far more abundant than UV light of only 5%. 220 In Nanotechnology for Sustainable Energy; Hu, Y., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013.

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Figure 1. Fundamental principle of semiconductor-based photocatalytic water splitting for hydrogen production. Reprinted with permission from Ref. (2) Copyright 2010 American Chemical Society. CdS is a visible-light-driven photocatalyst with narrow band gap of 2.42 eV (4) and its energy band edge matches hydrogen evolution potential (5, 6) as Figure 1 described. Due to the above dominant advantages, CdS becomes an attractive candidate for hydrogen evolution under solar light. It is well known that CdS has two main inherent shortcomings, low QE and photocorrosion (7, 8). So, many efforts have been taken to solve the problems. The improvement of the photocatalytic activity and stability of CdS for H2 production has been achieved by the preparation of CdS with different morphologies, the hybridization with other semiconductor, polymer or high surface area materials, cocatalyst deposition and sacrificial reagent introduction. Although great progress has been made to overcome the shortcomings, there is almost no related summary. From this point of view, the visible-light-driven CdS-based semiconductors have been overviewed in this article for H2 production from water splitting. The QE and H2 evolution rate by using different CdS-basedsemiconductors have been compared in this review as well. Furthermore, the different kinds of CdS modification routes will be introduced. More specifically, the preparation of CdS with different nanostructures will be included in section 2. The hybridization of CdS with other materials such as sulfides, TiO2, other semiconductors and high surface area matrix will be mentioned in section 3. In section 4, we will introduce cocatalyst effect. The function and mechanism of sacrificial reagents will be shown in section 5. Additionally, other modification methods will be briefly presented in section 6. Finally, in section 7, the important CdS-basedphotocatalysts for hydrogen evolution under visible light will be listed and compared in Table 1 and we will also put forward the problems and prospects in this section. We hope that researchers engaged in H2 production under solar light can gain any inspiration based on the analysis and summary here. 221 In Nanotechnology for Sustainable Energy; Hu, Y., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013.

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2. CdS with Different Nanostructures It is well known that specific surface area or particle size (9–11), crystallinity (9, 12, 13), crystalline phase (10) and morphology (14) have influence on photocatalytic activity of semiconductors. CdS with different size may have different activity for hydrogen evolution as well. The advantages of nanostructured CdS are as follow. First, it is well known that smaller grain size will lead to larger surface area, more active centers and more quickly migration of photogenerated electrons and holes to semiconductor surface. As a result, CdS with the smaller grain size may have higher activity. Second, when particle size decreases to nano level, the transfer of photogenerated electrons may be too quick to recombine with hole. Third, quantum size effect will happen. Tiny particle will result in the blue shift of light absorption and the increase of band gap. The enlarged energy level may lead to higher CB and lower VB of semiconductor (8). Ultimate result is the enhanced reductive and oxidative power of the photogenerated electrons and holes respectively (15, 16). Bao et al. (11) designed nanoporous CdS with special hollow and sheetlike nanostructure, which possessed large specific area. Since the bulk-to-surface migration distance of electrons and holes was shortened, thoroughly improved photocataytic activity was achieved. Sathish et al. (10) reported mesoporous CdS nanoparticle with small particle size and high surface area, which had the better photocatalytic activity of hydrogen evolution as well. As the examples listed above, the different morphologies of CdS will often result in different specific surface area and the different amount of active centers on surface. Nevertheless, Muruganandham et al. (14) found that the difference in morphology resulted in the different absorption of light and thus the final photocatalytic activity of hydrogen evolution. Crystallinity can affect the hydrogen activity by tuning defects. The samples with high calcined temperature have few defects because calcination can eliminate lattice stress (17). CdS with high crystallinity has enhanced photocatalytic activity of hydrogen production. Fan et al. (12) demonstrated that for the calcined hexagonal CdS, the trap emission became more and more weak so that the trap states were reduced, which would decrease the recombination of photogenerated charge carriers and result in enhanced photocatalytic activity. Furthermore, Jang et al. (13) prepared CdS nanowires with higher crystallinity, which showed a higher hydrogen evolution rate under visible light. Semiconductor with different crystalline phase will have different photocatalytic activity. Sathish et al. (10) synthesized two mesoporous CdS nanoparticles with the same particle size and surface area. The two samples showed different activity, which was because of different crystalline phase. They also found that hexagonal crystalline phase was more photoactive than the cubic, which is in accordance with other reported articles (5, 12).

3. Hybridization of CdS with Other Materials Although CdS with narrow band gap can absorb solar light with long wavelength, the photogenerated carriers can be recombined easily since the 222 In Nanotechnology for Sustainable Energy; Hu, Y., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013.

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recombination possibility is inverse ratio to energy band gap. What’s more, CdS has the other intrinsic shortcoming of photocorrosion, which means that CdS is not stable under solar light irradiation. So, many composites have been prepared to solve the two drawbacks. Here, we take the semiconductor-semiconductor heterojunction for example to elucidate the advantage of CdS hybridization with other materails. The hybridization of two semiconductors will lead to the formation of heterojunction, which will improve the transfer of photogenerated carriers, decrease the probability of carrier recombination, increase quantum yield and finally enhance the photocatalytic activity. The reason for the improved carrier separation effect is that photogenerated electrons and holes can be moved out due to the matched energy level between the different semiconductors, which will be discussed in detail below. 3.1. Hybridization of CdS with Sulfides The publications about CdS composition with other sulfides (18–34), or the formation of solid solutions (3, 18, 23, 30–34) are enormous. The reason for CdS hybridization with sulfides is as follow. The first is that CdS hybridization with sulfides definitely improves the separation of photogenerated carriers, leading to the enhanced photocatalytic activity of hydrogen evolution (3, 19–34) since all of the listed articles about hybridization of CdS show enhanced activity of hydrogen evolution under visible light. The second may be the easy preparation for this kind of photocatalysts and one step method can make it (3, 20, 23, 26). The third is that only S ion acting as an anion among the CdS hybrid makes sample analysis easy. Actually, when we add other metal ions to modify CdS for activity improvement, no other materials but composites or solid solutions can be formed for final resultants. The articles about CdS hybridization with zinc sulfide or the formation of Zn-Cd-S solid solution (3, 23, 30–34) is especially in large amount. We contribute it to the congeners of Zn and Cd, the small difference of atom radius (18) and the similar electronic structure for the two elements. In addition, the tight contact and the same hexagonal phase of CdS and ZnS make the crystal lattice of the two sulfides matched for the formation of composite or solid solution. In the work by Deshpande et al. (19), it was found that the small size of CdS crystallites and certain microstructural defects at the interface of CdS/ZnS nanocomposite photocatalysts provided a larger active surface area and the augmented number of reaction sites, which enabled a more efficient utilization of photogenerated e−/h+ pair for the dissociation of water molecules at the catalyst surface. Shen et al. (26) also reported that the transfer of photogenerated electrons and the unique nanostructure for CdS/ZnS nanocrystals were responsible for the highly efficient photocatalytic activity. While Yu et al. (3) indicated that high visible-light photocatalytic H2-production activity was attributed to the quantum size effect of CdS, which altered the energy levels of the conduction and valence bands in coupled semiconductor system. Some other solid solution systems of CdS have also been reported. Based on experiment data and DFT calculation, Ren et al. (35) attributed the high activity of (CuIn)xCd2(1-x)S2 to the new energy levels presented near the top of valence band 223 In Nanotechnology for Sustainable Energy; Hu, Y., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013.

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because of Cu and In codoping. Liu et al. (30) assigned the improved activity of H2 evolution to Mn2+ serving as shallow trapping sites, which could separate e-/h+ pairs at the surface of nanosized CdS. Moreover, Sasikala (31) demonstrated that the improved optical absorption was due to In doping for CdS. CdSe (21), SrS (20), MoS2 (22), AgGaS2 (27) were also used to hybridize with CdS and all of them can efficiently improve charge separation. The formation of microstructural defect (19), the passivation of surface-deep traps (21) , improved light absorption (28) are all the reasons to enhance the activity of H2 production from water splitting.

3.2. Hybridization of CdS with Other Semiconductor Except for the composition between sulfides, CdS hybridization with various non-sulfides has been reported as well, especially TiO2-based semiconductors (36–45). TiO2 is the most studied photocatalyst and has a number of advantages. There is an obvious advantage when CdS is hybridized with TiO2. The main mechanism is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Schematic illustration of charge-separation between CdS and titanate nanotubes or nanoparticles from Ref. (38). Reproduced by permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry.

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Under the irradiation of visible light, photon is absorbed by CdS. Meanwhile, electron is excited and injected from valence band to conduction band and the photogenerated electron and hole are generated. Although TiO2 can not respond to visible light (46), the relative low position of conduction band makes TiO2 a good trap for the electron generated by photoexcited CdS, which facilitates the free flow of photogenerated electron from CdS to TiO2. At the same time, the holes remain in the valence band to oxidize sacrifice agents. Additionally, there are other reasons for the improved photocatalytic activity, which includes heterojunction (39), the formation of the potential gradient at the interface between CdS and TiO2 (36, 41, 44), the enhanced charge separation and reduced distance that holes and electrons should travel to reach the electrolyte due to one-dimensional TiO2 nanotube structure (37, 38, 40, 41), the homogeneous distribution of CdS nanoparticles and the difference in the positions of conduction bands (43–45). In Park’s work (36), the potential gradient formation at the interface between CdS and TiO2 was necessary to achieve efficient charge separation and transfer. The unique nanoparticles enwrapped with titanate nanotubes (TNTs) resulted in the appropriate dispersion of CdS nanoparticles and the intimate multipoint contact between CdS nanoparticle and TNTs, which led to the intensive enhancement of charge separation in CdS/TNTs. In addition, highly crystalline hexagonal CdS in CdS/TNTs by one-step hydrothermal method was also essential for the enhanced photocatalytic performance (38). CdS/TNTs coaxial nanostructured array electrodes reported by Zhu et al. (40) could overcome the shortages of poor absorption and high charge-carrier recombination observed in nanoparticle films. The coaxial heterogeneous structure prepared by new electrochemical method possessed the intensively enhanced contact areas both between CdS and TiO2, and CdS and electrolyte, which shortened the distance that holes and electrons should travel to reach the electrolyte or conducting substrate. Furthermore, different kinds of semiconductors such as salt (47–52), oxide (53–56), hydroxide (57), have been hybridized with CdS. The prepared composites also have matched energy band level, which are almost the same as CdS/TiO2 composite. So, we can conclude that the potential gradient resulted from matched energy level at the composite interface is the main reason for the effective separation of photogenerated electrons and holes, and thereafter the enhanced photocatalytic activity for hydrogen production from water splitting. 3.3. Hybridization of CdS with Inorganic or Organic Matrix Materials The stability for CdS is poor and the photocorrosion restricts its practical application. CdS grown on the matrix with framework structures can have improved stability under visible light and is in favor of recycle as well. If the matrix has large surface area, uniform pore distribution, high thermal stability, and controllable mesoporous size, it leads to the good photocatalytic activity for hydrogen evolution simultaneously. In Zhang’s work (58), the nanosized CdS particles inside the aluminum-substituted mesoporous silica (Al-HMS) channels with high surface area had dangling bonds, defect sites and traps in small particles. Wormhole-like mesoporous structure of Al-HMS retained the uniform dispersion of CdS inside the channels. The incorporation of CdS nanoparticles into the 225 In Nanotechnology for Sustainable Energy; Hu, Y., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013.

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wormhole-like channels of Al-HMS protected CdS from exposure to air and reduced the amount of light absorption. He also reported (59) Al-HMS molecular sieve with large surface area, uniform pore distribution and high thermal stability coupled with CdS. The wormhole-like framework structure of Al-HMS serving as the matrix for embedded CdS nanoparticles under ambient conditions was the main reason for the photostability. The enhanced hydrogen evolution activity for CdS immobilized in silica matrix can be attributed to high crystallinity and well-fabricated mesostructures (60), diffusion velocity of the reactants and resultants (61). Except silica matrix, there are other matrix materials (62–64) to immobilize CdS. Ryu et al. (62) prepared packaged CdS in zeolite-Y and found that the quantum confinement of hydrated CdS increased the reduction potential for bound proton to hydrogen atom with electron transfer (CdOH2++e- → CdOH+ H·) and the confined CdS supercluster was a more efficient chromophore in the visible portion of spectrum. In Hirai’s work (63) about the immobilization of CdS nanoparticles onto aluminosilicate in reverse micelles, the chemical properties of the aluminosilicate, such as affinity for water and other reactants, were found to affect the photocatalytic activity of the immobilized CdS nanoparticles. CdS incorporated into inorganic matrix can improve the hydrogen evolution activity and stability as described above. However, the above inorganic compounds used as the matrix may keep visible light from CdS (65). Therefore, the use of organic porous films in the synthesis of heteromatrices has been the subject of immense interest due to their distinctive optical and convenient reactivating properties (66). The hybridization with most commonly used organic polymer, polyaniline (PANI) (67, 68), can improve not only activity but also stability of CdS. He et al. (67) pointed out that there were two reasons for the better activity after PANI hybridization. On one hand, the coordination bond was formed between CdS and PANI, which might benefit the transfer of electrons and thus the improved activity for hydrogen evolution was achieved. On the other hand, the interaction between PANI and CdS prevented the agglomeration of CdS particles in a certain extent. Zhang et al. (68) also reported that PANI was helpful for the separation of photogenerated carriers. While in Ke’s work (69) about CdS/regenerated cellulose nanocomposite, CdS nanoparticles dispersed in the nanocomposites could efficiently restrain the agglomeration among CdS nanoparticles. Thus, both of the activity and stability were improved. Lunawat et al. (70) demonstrated that CdS nanocrystallites immobilized onto water-repellant polymeric surface had long and active life because of its hydrophobic nature. These observations conform to the large surface area and hence the large number of reaction sites associated with nanosized CdS crystallites. While Lau et al. (71) analyzed improved activity for the composite in other aspects. They found that it was because of the interaction between CdS and organic solvent. As a result, CdS with different exposed active crystal face was prepared in special solvents and the activity was closely related to the exposed active crystal face. The most effective matrix materials not only can inhibit the aggregation of semiconductor particle but also facilitate the migration of photogenerated carriers. Carbon nanotubes (72, 73), graphene (GR) (74, 75) and graphene oxide (GO) (49, 76, 77) have such advantages. For example, after CdS was hybridized with graphene, the aggregation of CdS was avoided and the particle size decreased as 226 In Nanotechnology for Sustainable Energy; Hu, Y., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013.

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shown in Figure 3. The main mechanism of enhanced photocatalytic activity for graphite-based materials can be defined in Figure 4. As shown in Figure 4, GO was also used as matrix materials to immobilize CdS so that the dispersive and non-aggregated CdS could be obtained. In addition, the presence of GO can function as an electron collector and transporter to efficiently prolong the lifetime of the photogenerated carriers (76).

Figure 3. SEM images of (a) sample CdS and (b) sample CdS-GR. Reprinted with permission from Ref. (74) Copyright 2011 American Chemical Society.

Figure 4. Schematic illustration of the charge separation and transfer in the organic matrix from Ref. (76). Reproduced by permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry. 227 In Nanotechnology for Sustainable Energy; Hu, Y., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013.

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4. Cocatalysts Since the activity of pure CdS is not high enough, cocatalysts have been also tried to be deposited onto CdS surface for the improvement of hydrogen production from water splitting under solar light. With the presence of suitable cocatalysts, the photocatalytic activity for hydrogen evolution increases prominently. The rate with and without cocatalyst can be different with at least one order of magnitude. Taking cocatalyst Pt as an example, the mechanism of the enhanced hydrogen activity for CdS is illustrated as follows (78, 79): Under the irradiation of solar light, charge carriers can be separated in the heterojunction between CdS and Pt. The obvious separation of the charge carriers can be attributed to the higher work function and lower Fermi level of Pt than CdS. So, the electrons can be transferred from CdS with high Fermi level to Pt nanoparticles. At the same time, a thin depletion layer is formed when the bending of CdS conduction band occurs. Electrons transfer because of Fermi level difference between CdS and Pt will lead to the electron enrichment (negative charge) in Pt and the electron lack (positive charge) in CdS (i.e. holes enrichment in CdS). The separation of electrons and holes will result in the formation of contact potential and opposite transfer of electrons (i.e. electrons can be transferred from Pt nanoparticles to CdS ), which is so-called drift current. The electron transfer will reach a dynamic balance when current (flow from CdS to Pt nanoparticles) resulted from different Fermi level is equal to drift current (flow from Pt nanoparticles to CdS). That is, under the irradiation of solar light, the photogenerated electron possesses higher energy. Thus, the Fermi level for CdS will continually increase and the aforementioned balance before light irradiation is broken. The electron transfer between the CdS and Pt will continue until it reaches a new balance. The transfer of photogenerated electrons and holes between CdS and Pt-cocatalyst can be described in Figure 5. We can also apply this mechanism to composite system. The usage of Pt in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution system is so common that Pt deposition is acquiescent as a part of photocatalyst. It is well known that the deposited particle size (81, 82) and the amount (12) of cocatalyst can affect hydrogen evolution activity greatly. Huang (81) reported that the activity of as prepared photocatalysts was dependent on the size and distribution of Pt in Pt/CdS system in a large extent. Berr (82) demonstrated that CdS nanorods decorated with subnanometer size ( glycerol > glycol > ethanol > methanol. The reason might be that CdS demonstrated diverse ability for the oxidation of different sacrificial reagents under visible light, which is consistent with Harada’s report (54). Among all of the scrificial reagents, S2-/SO32- is the most commonly used one since S ion possesses relatively high reductive ability. It is easy for the reaction between photogenerated hole and S2-/SO32- to happen. The detailed reactions are as follows (45, 91):

S2- combines with two holes, which generates S elementary substance. Then, SO32reacts with S to generate S2O32-. The removal of holes not only protects CdS from photocorrosion but also avoids the recombination with photogenerated electrons.

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Besides the above mentioned scrificial reagents, some inorganic sacrifice agents such as Fe2+, Ce3+ and I-2, have been also used in H2 production system with CdS photocatalysts. The detailed introduction and mechanism can be found in the review by Chen et al. (2). To keep photocatalytic reaction successive going, it is necessary for sacrificial reagents to be added to reaction system constantly. However, continuously addition of sacrificial reagents is inconvenient and what’s worse, increases the cost. So, inorganic sacrifice agents will be replaced by organic ones in future since it is a beautiful dream to produce H2 under solar light while to accomplish organic pollutant degradation.

6. Other Factors PH can affect photocatalytic activity of hydrogen evolution, which might be inferred from the above equation R2 and R6. Relative low pH is a positive factor for hydrogen evolution. On the contrary, high pH is in favor of the capture of photogenerated holes. While Silva (95) reported that C-CdS/Pt/hex-CdS composite showed much higher activity at pH 14 with the mixed sulfide/sulfite S2-/SO32- electron donor system. In that case, Pt (II) could be reduced back to Pt(0) at high pH and thus the activity increase was obtained at high pH compared with pH 7. The research about pH effect is so few that it is hard to say which pH is suitable for one particular photocatalytic system. Based on the principle of chemical reaction equilibrium of H2O = H2 + O2, we can know that the removal of oxygen before photocatalytic reaction and the output of the photocatalytic resultant H2 are the common used ways to promote positive reaction of H2 evolution.

7. Summary and Prospects To roundly study the photocatalytic activity for hydrogen production from water splitting over the above-mentioned CdS-based semiconductors, we list the reported CdS-based photocatalysts, their rate and QE for hydrogen evolution and some important parameters in photocatalytic reaction in Table 1. Because the equipment, photocatalyst mass, light source etc are different in different photocatalytic systems, we can only compare the samples with calculated quantum efficiency.

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Table 1. Main CdS-based semiconductor photocatalysts for hydrogen evolution from water splitting under visible light. Photocatalyst

Mass (g) /Volume (ml)

Light source (W/nm)

Sacrificial agent

Co catalyst

Rate (μmol/(h. 0.1g))

QE(%) 420 nm

Reference

Pt-PbS-CdS

0.3/200

300Xe >420

Na2S Na2SO3

Pt

2923

93

(86, 96)

Nanoporous CdS

0.15/200

300Xe ≥420

Na2S Na2SO3

Pt

-

60.34

(11)

CdS/TiO2 nanotube

0.15/300

300Xe ≥420

Na2S Na2SO3

Pt

208

43.4

(41)

CdS/ZnS/In2S3

0.015/320

300Xe >400

Na2S Na2SO3

-

810

40.9

(26)

CdS/TaON

0.2/200

300Xe =420

Na2S Na2SO3

Pt

316.5

31

(49)

Ni(OH)2/CdS

0.05/80

300Xe ≥420

triethalamine

Pt

508.4

28

(57)

CdS/TNT

0.2/190

500Xe ≥430

Na2S Na2SO3

Pt

176.7

25.5

(38)

Reduced GO-Zn1-xCdxS

0.05/80

Solar simulator

Na2S Na2SO3

-

182.4

23.4

(77)

CdS/GR

0.02/80

350Xe ≥420

Lactic acid

Pt

5600

22.5

(75)

CdS-AgGaS2

0.1

450Hg ≥420

Na2S Na2SO3

Pt

296

19.7

(26)

Continued on next page.

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Table 1. (Continued). Main CdS-based semiconductor photocatalysts for hydrogen evolution from water splitting under visible light. Photocatalyst

Mass (g) /Volume (ml)

Light source (W/nm)

Sacrificial agent

Co catalyst

Rate (μmol/(h. 0.1g))

QE(%) 420 nm

Reference

Sr/CdS

0.2/50

350Xe

Na2S Na2SO3

-

123

10

(24)

CdS/TiO2

0.1/50

350Xe ≥400

Na2S Na2SO3

-

-

8.9

(43)

MoS2/CdS

0.1/200

300Xe >420

Organic reagents

-

533

7.3

(21)

CdS-Zn1-xCdxS

0.05/80

350Xe >400

Na2S Na2SO3

-

≈230

6.3

(8)

NiO-CdS

0.2/50

500 halogen

Na2S Na2SO3

-

74.5

6

(55)

CdS/TiO2

0.0125/25

450Xe >420

Na2S Na2SO3

Pt

672

4.5

(36)

SrS/CdS

0.2/200

350Xe ≥430

Na2S Na2SO3

-

-

2.85

(19)

Z-CdS-Cd

0.1/300

300Xe

Na2S Na2SO3

Pt

1920

-

(56)

PANI-PbS- CdS

0.2/200

300Xe >430

Na2S Na2SO3

-

1660

-

(68)

CeO2/CdS

0.05/100

300Xe

Na2S Na2SO3

-

1564

-

(53)

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Photocatalyst

Mass (g) /Volume (ml)

Light source (W/nm)

Sacrificial agent

Co catalyst

Rate (μmol/(h. 0.1g))

QE(%) 420 nm

Reference

Mesoporous CdS

0.1/50

400Hg

Na2S Na2SO3

Pt

1415

-

(10)

CdS/Ta2O5

0.05/50

Xe 400-800

Lactic acid

-

≈900

-

(60)

Z-CdS

0.2/200

300Xe

Na2S Na2SO3

RuO2

≈630

-

(24)

CdS/Zeolite

0.1/50

400Hg UV

Na2S Na2SO3

Pt

600

-

(85)

MoS2/CdS

0.1/200

300Xe

Lactic Acid

MoS2

≈530

-

(87)

MWCNTS/CdS

0.035/100

300Xe ≥420

Na2S Na2SO3

-

498

-

(72)

CdS Microcrytal

0.03/40

500Xe ≥400

Na2S Na2SO3

Pt

460

-

(14)

CdS/CdWO4

0.05/200

500Xe

Na2S Na2SO3

-

180.5

-

(51)

hexagonal CdS

0.3/200

300Xe ≥420

Na2S Na2SO3

Pt

160

-

(9)

CdS

0.1/100

500Hg >420

Na2S Na2SO3

WC

≈136

-

(80)

CdS/Re-Cellulose

0.05/100

250Xe ≥420

Na2S Na2SO3

Pt

132.3

-

(69)

Continued on next page.

In Nanotechnology for Sustainable Energy; Hu, Y., et al.; ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2013.

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Table 1. (Continued). Main CdS-based semiconductor photocatalysts for hydrogen evolution from water splitting under visible light. Photocatalyst

Mass (g) /Volume (ml)

Light source (W/nm)

Sacrificial agent

Co catalyst

Rate (μmol/(h. 0.1g))

QE(%) 420 nm

Reference

N-GR/CdS

0.2/300

300Xe >420

Na2S Na2SO3

-

105

-

(88)

Ag2S/CdS

0.1/120

Hg-Xe >400

Na2S Na2SO3

Ag2S and Pt

87.4

-

(89)

Hexagonal CdS

0.1/200

300Xe ≥420

Lactic acid

Pt

74.9

-

(12)

Sr-CdS-ZnS

0.2/200

500Xe >430

Na2S Na2SO3

-

≈51

-

(23)

LaMnO3/CdS

0.1/60

300Xe Visible light

Na2S Na2SO3

-

37.5

-

(47)

PANI-CdS

0.2/180

400Xe >420

Na2S Na2SO3

-

29.91

-

(67)

CdS/TiO2

0.1/100

450Hg ≥420

Na2S Na2SO3

Pt

≈11

-

(42)

CdS Nanowire

0.1/100

500Hg